Family members explain feelings to Entwistle

His sentence was a foregone conclusion, but Neil Entwistle on Thursday was forced to hear about the pain and suffering caused by the murders of his wife and daughter.

Norman Miller

His sentence was a foregone conclusion, but Neil Entwistle on Thursday was forced to hear about the pain and suffering caused by the murders of his wife and daughter.

Entwistle, 29, was convicted Wednesday of two counts of first-degree murder for the Jan. 20, 2006, slayings of his wife, Rachel, 27, and daughter Lillian Rose, 9 months.

“Our dreams as a parent and grandparent have been shattered by the shameful, selfish act of one person - Neil Entwistle,” Rachel's mother, Priscilla Matterazzo, told Judge Diane Kottmyer at his sentencing. “For him to have to hide behind the accusation of murder-suicide of this beautiful woman and perfect mother is low and despicable.”

Entwistle was sentenced to mandatory life in prison without the chance of parole, but Priscilla Matterazzo said she, her family and all of Rachel's friends, “were sentenced without the luxury of a trial by jury and now must go on with the eternity of emptiness.

“Suffering does not begin to describe what we have been enduring without our beloved Rachel and Lillian, who gave our lives such purpose and meaning.”

“Neil, you have been judged today by a jury of your peers on Earth, but one day, you will face the ultimate judgment of your horrific deeds and betrayals.”

Rachel's brother, Jerome Souza, surrounded by his wife and other family members, recalled the time when he was in second grade and Rachel was in kindergarten, and he could not find her on the school bus. He said he scoured every bus until he found her.

“She was my little sister, and I knew I had the responsibility to take care of her,” he said.

Now, he said, he can't protect her, and no one will ever get to see how great a mother she was or to see Lillian grow up.

“Each and every day, we have to live with the betrayal of Neil Entwistle,” Souza said.

Kottmyer had strong words for Entwistle.

“These crimes are incomprehensible,” she said. “They defy comprehension because they involve the planned and deliberate murders of the defendant's wife and 9-month-old child in violation of bonds that we recognize as central to our identity as human beings, those of husband and wife, and parent and child.

“What is all too clear and easily comprehended is the magnitude of the loss and the pain suffered by Rachel and Lillian Entwistle's extended family, in particular Rachel's brother, Jerome Souza, and her mother and stepfather, Priscilla and Joseph Matterazzo.”

Prosecutor Michael Fabbri urged the judge to sentence Entwistle to consecutive, rather than concurrent, life terms.

Kottmyer said she worried such a sentence would create the wrong impression.

“Absent a pardon by the governor, there is no possibility of release from prison,” the judge said. “A consecutive sentence would be purely symbolic.”

Entwistle was also sentenced to probation for his conviction on illegal possession of ammunition and illegal possession of a gun.

Through his lawyers, Entwistle declined to make a statement.

Kottmyer also ordered that Entwistle not profit in any way from “the sale of his story either by way of book or otherwise to any media outlet.”

When Entwistle was arrested, he had a notebook in his pocket detailing a plan to sell the story of his wife's and daughter's deaths. Prosecutors said Entwistle murdered Rachel and Lillian Rose in their home at 6 Cubs Path in Hopkinton with a gun he stole from the Matterazzos' Carver home. They say he returned the gun before fleeing to England.

Entwistle's lawyers claimed Rachel killed Lillian and then herself, and that Neil returned the gun to protect his wife's honor.

After the sentencing, Entwistle's lawyer, Elliot Weinstein, said his client has “nothing to look forward to,” heading to prison.

“It's a reality he will have to look forward to until we are successful with his appeal,” he said.

All first-degree murder convictions are automatically appealed to the state Supreme Judicial Court. Weinstein has said two separate searches by Hopkinton Police of the Entwistle home were illegal.

Weinstein also disputed several media accounts that suggested he and fellow defense lawyer Stephanie Page did not present a defense.

“What I'm frustrated with is how so many people don't know what a trial is,” he said.

Weinstein said every time he or Page questioned someone about DNA, or gunshot residue tests not being done, that was evidence.

“We have no burden of proof,” he said. “That's on the prosecution.”

Page said the prosecution failed to examine why gunshot residue was found on Rachel Entwistle's hands.

“That evidence was never fully investigated, and if it had been, we wouldn't be sitting here today,” Page said.

Entwistle's family - his father, Clifford, his mother, Yvonne, and her brother Russell - issued a statement that was printed in their hometown newspaper, the Worksop Guardian, saying they were “devastated” by the verdict.

“We find the strength, however, as we have done for the past two and a half years to fight through this difficult time with the love and support from our family and friends back home,” they wrote.

They also thanked those in the United Kingdom and the United States who offered support.

In the statement, they did not accuse Rachel of killing Lillian as part of a murder-suicide as Yvonne Entwistle did immediately after the verdict on Wednesday. They insist their son did not receive a fair trial.

“We chose to respect America by not being dragged into pretrial propaganda as the trial was for the courtroom only,” they wrote in the Guardian. “Unfortunately, America did not respect us back and has not given our innocent son a fair trial.”

While Entwistle was formally sentenced to MCI-Cedar Junction in Walpole, he will be transferred to Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, a maximum-security prison, starting today, said Diane Wiffin, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Correction.